Worried about
President Bush’s threat to veto the bill, Democrats in Congress have made cuts to their initial proposal for the 2008 appropriations bill. The funding would affect numerous federal agencies, and compromised budgetary proposals were a common theme. Higher education programs dealing with
financial aid and research
grants were among those to see funding cuts.
As reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the new bill would decrease the
Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) program budget by $13.5 million. The
Perkins Loan program, a low-income federal
student loan option, as well as the Leveraging Education Assistance Program (LEAP) would receive $1.1 million less than they did the previous year. Considering the president had suggested eliminating these programs altogether, they could have fared worse.
Although a number of financial aid programs would receive a bump in budget, research inflation estimates would, in effect, lead to funding cuts. Financial aid for the National Institutes of Health is an example. Though the budget for the institutes would increase by 0.4 percent, the estimated 3.7 percent inflation rate in biomedical research would leave the institutes with smaller funds. The National Science Foundation (NSF) would find itself in a similar position.
If the budget is passed, some programs would see real budget increases in the upcoming year. The Health Careers Opportunity Program, the Allied Health program and NASA would each be offered greater budgets. Nursing education, an area that Bush had planned to lower funding for, would also see greater funding. Such a raise makes sense knowing that the nursing profession is growing in popularity and that
nursing scholarships are in great demand. Even with the cuts, the allocations differ from those originally suggested by the president. A response from the White House is yet to be seen.
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